(...) Manuel da Costa has surprised the Brazilian photographer community with his conceptual, consciously political work. Costa takes fragments of his natural environment to construct an entirely personal, almost monochromatic, yet kaleidoscopic universe. In assembling these fragments that time has passed by, he recovers and articulates a particular way of seeing the visible world and stimulates the imagination. The landscapes he creates are critical; they raise questions; they reconstitute an invented paradise as if it were an album of memorabilia created as authentically as any other. Costa opens up the possibility of seeing a unique world in which reality is in opposition to the imaginary and the concrete clashes with the abstract, in a way that throws into relief the crisis faced by today´s world of superficiality and appearances. (...)